So I’m looking through the endless Farmer’s Only profiles late one night, and I come across this one:
Wow. This is a girl I need to talk to… NOW. I immediately sent her a message. At first I got no reply… As it turned out, because I had at the time listed that I was only looking for people within 200 miles, and she was closer to 300, she didn’t take a serious look. Once I realized the problem and removed that, she noticed, and wrote me back. We started talking at length and I realized I had struck gold.
Mary Kerr is 27, the oldest of 9, and homeschooled. Her family has lived in Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Ohio. Her Dad is a computer programmer and her Mom used to teach math. Our two families are extremely similar, which still surprises me a bit… I didn’t think there were any other families like ours. Ha!
She loves hand crafts and homemaking, and wants to homeschool our kids. She loves books and is very smart. Quiet and reserved, but with a sparkling wit and knows when to tease. She is a Christian and has the same outlook on life as I do. We both have the same goals and dreams. In fact we have yet to find anything we seriously disagree on. We both like to live simply and are very frugal. Even the simplest things seem to be fascinating to talk about. Our running joke is that we’re both very boring people, and we like it that way!
Mary spent a few years working retail, first at Family Christian Bookstores, then when that closed down she worked at Hallmark and then JoAnn Fabrics. All the while, as she said in her profile, what she really wants is to be a wife and mother, not a career woman. She could have gone to college but instead chose to avoid the heavy debt load (for which I am grateful!)
Mary has never done any farming or gardening, so that part will be a learning experience. She’s ready and willing, but hasn’t had the experience. I’ll make a country girl out of her yet. She is already pretty handy with household repairs, which is a pleasant surprise. We both have a lot to learn about house building in the coming years, starting with a full remodel of the existing house on our homestead (see the homestead thread here).
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So, after talking to Mary for a couple of weeks, and finding there were no roadblocks, I decided to make the trek to Ohio for a visit. After all, meeting the family (and the girl!) seems kinda important. I drove 6 hours north early on April 14th, a Saturday morning. We played some Scrabble, went to the park, and talked for several hours. Sunday I took her out for some ice cream. Handel’s is actually world famous, and happens to be right down the street from her house. As we sat in the car and finished our peanut butter parfaits, I asked her if she would marry me, and she said yes.
Now, this was the extent of my planning so far… I hadn’t even gotten a ring yet. So I found a red rubber band in the console, and put it on her finger. We decided to head over to a jewelry store and pick out a ring. I let her take the lead, since a) it wasn’t a surprise anymore, and b) I know nothing about jewelry. As you walk into these places, the sales folks descend on you like bloodsuckers smelling fresh meat. The nice man started pointing out all the shiny diamond rings, and asking lots of expensive sounding questions. And then Mary said, “Do you have anything without any stones? I don’t really want a stone.” You should have seen the look on that poor man’s face… crestfallen, he pointed us towards the back corner of the store, where the “men’s” rings were. Apparently men get to have simple rings. She picked out a thin, plain silver band. She has small hands, so the ring was not very big either. I asked her if she was sure that’s all she wanted, and she told me it would be more comfortable and she didn’t want anything fancier. So we walked out with the cheapest ring in the entire store, and I couldn’t have been happier. Not because I saved a bunch of money… but because I found someone who (like me) didn’t crave expensive things.
At this point we headed back to tell her folks, and I was expecting a bit of shock on their part. After all, I proposed only one day after meeting Mary for the first time… But as it turned out, they were actually placing bets on whether I would propose Saturday or Sunday (Mom won the bet… she’s very smart). Apparently my intentions weren’t so hard to figure out. I then got in the car and headed straight home… Work on Monday and all that. But, overall, a well spent weekend.
Over the following week we decided to get married at the end of June. Neither of us wanted a long engagement, and we’re both the type to wait for marriage, so… what’s the point in dragging things out? The main reason for June and not earlier was that my sister is currently hiking through Scotland, and we wanted her to be able to attend the wedding. Because of the short timeline, and also both our preferences, we planned a very small wedding, immediate family only (two large families though!). Mary made her own wedding dress, and we found me a perfectly good suit coat at Goodwill for $7. As you can see, the tone has been set. I like it.
I have since told lots of folks our timeline, and gotten every reaction from “Wait… what?” to “Are you insane??” to “Good work, we did it in 3 weeks too” I find that it reflects more on the person doing the reacting than it does us.